Page 19 - Floors AZU

Maria van Elk Bolidt-vloer met kleurcompositie naar de ochtend en de middag, voor Academisch Ziekenhuis, Utrecht, 1987-1989

Materials and implementation The design is Moreover, this floor with my design and with this
implemented on a scale of 1 in 100. It is of course material turned out below budget. In the factory
impossible to test the design on the actual size. I got the opportunity to get to know the material
Sleepless nights until the moment they started in all sorts of different ways. Only after I mastered
to pour the floors. We developed 12 new colors all different possibilities could I start working,
which the factory did not have, a first for them. Mixing the colors on the spot did not produce
But also the technical application to pour color satisfactory results. This material does not actually
fields against each other and to fit in a composition have a physique at all. The focus on the physical
on a floor. They had never done that, only did experience, which in my “free work” lies in the act
plain floors. We experimented in the factory to of drawing, has in this commission moved from the
see whether it stuck and how to pour without act of production to the physical observing and
unevenness between different colors. experiencing of the space.
This is new in my work and is also the result of the
Innovation I knew a similar floor was made in scale.
the sculpture gallery of museum Kroller Muller.
Therefore, I knew the material and I liked it very
much as a monochrome plane, a mixture of
pigment and synthetic resin. I choose for this
particular material, because the color can be
manipulated. As a result of my design and concept
new colors and methods had to be developed.
I do remember that in the fifties several artists,
among others Carel Visser and Karel Appel, made
designs for curtains. This has completely faded to
the background in the sixties and seventies.
I found it exiting to work with this factory and
would regret it if this would be limited to an
incident.

photography Ferry André de la Porte
ARTICLE: INTERVIEW JETTEKE BOLTEN REMT AND MARIA VAN ELK | 1988

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